Hoosier Cancer Research Network recently launched a Symptom Management Clinical Trial Working Group. The group grew out of a desire to see improvements in quality of life for patients, from diagnosis through survivorship.

Formation of the group was sparked by Julie Otte, PhD, RN, OCN from the Indiana University School of Nursing and her commitment to enhancing the patient experience. “It’s one thing to do this great research, but it has to be something that eventually makes it to the patient,” said Otte, co-chair of the group.

A nurse by trade, Otte gained first-hand knowledge of and a passion for treating oncology patients. She observed a lack of information about symptom management and later focused her doctoral work in this area. Otte’s research focuses primarily on the impact of sleep, which she says is critical to the healing process.

“New research is coming out from basic scientists that if you don’t have restful sleep, the body can’t maintain the ability to fight off anything that shouldn’t be there,” she said.

The symptom management group fills a significant need. According to Otte, many of the lingering symptoms cancer patients experience tend to be under-reported or not reported at all. Some of these issues include abnormal sleep patterns, fear, anxiety, depression, and menopausal symptoms including hot flashes. These impacts can continue long after the end treatment.

Otte believes HCRN is well positioned to facilitate the development and conduct of symptom management research.

“We see a niche with HCRN because we can run trials through the network quickly and it provides a one stop shop,” she said. “We can go all the way from beginning to end recruitment and it can be multi-site. So those findings really can be more generalizable either to our region or the nation. … The motivation is to get good data and to disseminate our findings quickly so that we can move on to the next step and really start to translate some of these findings to patient care.”

Key to the new group’s success, according to Otte, will be a strong collaboration across disease areas.

“In order to impact patient care we really have to expand that across different types of cancer,” she said. “Collaboration is going to be key, because the more we realize the benefit of doing these trials the quicker we can accrue and collect the data.”

Learn more about the HCRN Symptom Managament CTWG.

— By Alecia Burkhardt, HCRN communications associate

About Hoosier Cancer Research Network:

Hoosier Cancer Research Network (formerly known as Hoosier Oncology Group) conducts innovative cancer research in collaboration with academic and community physicians and scientists across the United States. The organization provides comprehensive clinical trial management and support, from conception through publication. Created in 1984 as a program of the Walther Cancer Institute, Hoosier Cancer Research Network became an independent nonprofit clinical research organization in 2007. Since its founding, Hoosier Cancer Research Network has initiated more than 150 trials in a variety of cancer types and supportive care, resulting in more than 300 publications. More than 4,600 subjects have participated in Hoosier Cancer Research Network clinical trials.